This paper presents results of user evaluations with a socially assistive robot companion for older people suffering from mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and living (alone) at home. Within the European FP7 project “CompanionAble” (2008-2012) [1], we developed assistive technologies combining a mobile robot and smart environment with the aim to support these people and assist them living in their familiar home environment. For a final evaluation, user experience studies were conducted with volunteer users who were invited to a test home where they lived and freely used the robot and integrated system over a period of two days. Services provided by the companion robot include reminders of appointments (pre-defined or added by the users themselves or their informal carer) as well as frequent recommendations to specific activities, which were listed e.g. by their family carers. Furthermore, video contact with relatives and friends, a cognitive stimulation game designed especially to counter the progress of cognitive impairments, and the possibility to store personal items with the robot are offered. Recognition of the user entering or leaving the home is triggering situation specific reminders like agenda items due during the (expected) absence, missed calls or items not to be forgotten. Continuing our previous work published in [2], this paper presents detailed description of the implemented assistive functions and results of user studies conducted during April and May 2012 in the smart house of the Dutch project partner Smart Homes in Eindhoven, The Netherlands.

This paper presents results of the development of a socially assistive home robot companion for older people suffering from mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and living (alone) at home. This work was part of the European FP7 project “CompanionAble” (2008-2012) [1] which aimed at developing assistive technologies that can support these elderly and help them to remain in their familiar living environment for as long as possible. To overcome current market entry barriers, from the start we consistently adopted a user- and application-centered development process of the companion robot and focused on three main aspects: (i) the realization of a set of mandatory functionalities to support care recipients and caregivers, (ii) a strict design and usability driven realization to increase the acceptance of the robot by the different end-user groups (the elderly, their relatives, and caregivers), and (iii) the development and component selection considering production and operational costs. In continuation of the work presented in [2], this paper describes the final implementation of the companion robot and presents latest results of functional tests and early findings of user studies recently conducted in the smart house of the Dutch project partner Smart Homes in Eindhoven, The Netherlands.

In the current paper we hypothesize that providing peripheral awareness information to remotely located but socially close individuals will yield affective user benefits. An experiment in a controlled home-like environment was conducted to investigate the effects of providing different levels of peripheral awareness information on these affective benefits. In the experiment peripheral awareness aimed to support groups of friends to jointly watch a soccer match at remote locations. The experiment has shown that providing awareness information increases the social presence and the group attraction felt by individuals towards their remote partners. The experiment has provided concrete quantitative and qualitative evidence for the hypothesized benefits of supporting primary relationships through awareness systems and of the relevance of social presence as a requirement in the design of peripheral awareness displays.